. Johnson's deepest feelings and convictions, Professor
Clifford has recently reminded us, can be traced back to his childhood
and adolescence. But it is surprising to learn, as one does from his
commentary, that other scenes in these very plays (_Hamlet_ and _King
Lear_, and in _Macbeth_, too) leave him unmoved, if one can so interpret
the absence of any but an explanatory note on, say, Lear's speech
beginning "Pray, do not mock me;/I am a very foolish fond old man."
Besides this negative evidence there is also the positive evidence of
many notes which display the dispassionate editorial mind at work where
one might expect from Johnson an outburst of personal feeling. There are
enough of these outbursts to warrant our expecting others, but we are
too frequently disappointed. Perhaps Johnson thought of most of
Shakespeare's tragedies as "imperial tragedies" and that is why he could
maintain a stance of aloofness; conversely, "the play of _Timon_ is a
domestick Tragedy, and therefore strongly fastens on the attention of
the reader." But the "tragedy" of Timon does not capture the attention
of the modern reader, and perhaps all attempts to fix Johnson's likes
and dislikes, and the reasons for them, in the canon of Shakespeare's
plays must circle endlessly without ever getting to their destination.

TRAGEDIES

Vol. IV

MACBETH

(392) Most of the notes which the present editor has subjoined to this
play were published by him in a small pamphlet in 1745.

I.i (393,*) _Enter three Witches_] In order to make a true estimate of
the abilities and merit of a writer, it it always necessary to examine
the genius of his age, and the opinions of his contemporaries. A poet
who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon
enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of
supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of
probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned
to write fairy tales instead of tragedies; but a survey of the notions
that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove that
Shakespeare was in no danger of such censures, since he only turned the
system that was then universally admitted, to his advantage, and was far
from overburthening the credulity of his audience.

The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the
same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been
credit